WND EXCLUSIVE

Sheriff Joe: 'I'm not going to call it quits'

Arizona lawman responds to decision to put Obama on state ballot

Jerome R. Corsi, a Harvard Ph.D., is a WND senior staff writer. He has authored many books, including No. 1 N.Y. Times best-sellers "The Obama Nation" and "Unfit for Command." Corsi's latest book is "Partners in Crime."

Sheriff Joe Arpaio says the decision by Arizona Secretary of State Ken Bennett to place Barack Obama’s name on the state’s presidential ballot won’t put an end to the investigation by his Cold Case posse team, which now has its lead detective on the ground in Honolulu.

“No, I’m not going to call it quits,” Arpaio told WND.

“I’m not calling my Cold Case Posse investigators home from Hawaii, and I don’t plan to end my investigation prematurely.”

After more than eight weeks of pressing Hawaii’s Department of Health, Bennett said last night that he finally received information that proves Obama’s American birth and satisfies Arizona’s requirements for having the president on the ballot, reported azcentral.com

The reported verification from Hawaii came only after Bennett, a Republican who has aspirations to run for governor, closely tailored his request to conform to the demands of Hawaii’s attorney general.

Arpaio said that as the highest elected law enforcement officer in Maricopa County, “I am determined to remain above politics in the effort of my Cold Case Posse to discover the truth.”

As WND reported, Arpaio launched his investigation last September after 250 Maricopa County residents belonging to the Surprise, Ariz., Tea Party presented him with a petition claiming their voting rights would be compromised if Obama used a forged birth certificate to win a place on the 2012 Arizona presidential ballot.

“As with any investigation undertaken by my office, it is my responsibility to the residents of Maricopa County to investigate until I discover the truth, regardless how intensely political pressure is applied to me by the White House and now by the Arizona secretary of state,” Arpaio told WND late last night.

WND has also reported U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder has decided to take the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office to federal District Court in pursuit of the Justice Department claims that Arpaio has implemented policies that systematically deprive Hispanics of federal civil rights.

Bennett’s announcement yesterday that a back-and-forth exchange of emails with Hawaii state officials had concluded came as Maricopa County Cold Case Posse investigators were in Hawaii probing the authenticity of the document released by the White House April 27, 2011, as Obama’s long-form birth certificate.

Dismissing the likelihood Bennett’s move will end the birth certificate controversy, Mike Zullo, the lead investigator for Arpaio’s Cold Case Posse, told WND his team will remain in Hawaii until their investigations are completed.

Zullo said the possibility remained that Arpaio’s law enforcement investigation will conclude Obama’s birth certificate and Selective Service registration form are fraudulent – a result that would pit the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office against the Arizona state government. The posse announced March 1 probable cause exists that the documents were forged.

“In my meetings with Mr. Bennett on behalf of Sheriff Arpaio, he was uninterested in reviewing the evidence the Cold Case Posse has accumulated,” Zullo said, characterizing Bennett’s late-night announcement as a “desperate rush to judgment” after weeks of negotiation to get Hawaii to provide the assurances he required.

“Evidently Hawaii has had a change of heart,” Zullo said. “I’m now happy to return once again to the Hawaii Department in Health to repeat our request that Hawaii release whatever birth records may yet remain concealed in the Hawaii Department of Health vaults to public examination by a court-certified group of forensic examiners.”

Bennett made his announcement after the close of business in Phoenix yesterday, apparently before he had an opportunity to read the emails sent to his office by Joshua Wisch, special assistant to Hawaii Attorney General David Louie.

Surprise Tea Party members responded angrily to Bennett’s announcement, charging he had caved to political pressure applied by prominent Republican Party members, including Arizona’s Republican Sen. John McCain.

As WND reported, Bennett had responded in writing to inquiries from Arizona Tea Party officials with the promise that he would remove Obama from the Arizona presidential ballot unless Hawaii provided verification that Obama’s birth certificate is valid.

Many times during the weeks-long controversy, Bennett expressed surprise that the certification he required from the state of Hawaii was not immediately forthcoming.

As the confrontation between the Arizona secretary of state and the Hawaii attorney general’s office unfolded, the Obama birth controversy took an unexpected turn when Breitbart News disclosed Obama’s literary agency published in 1991 on Obama’s behalf a biography claiming the future president was born in Kenya.

WND has reported that the agency, Dystel & Goderich, continued publishing until 2007 biographical summaries declaring Obama was Kenyan-born, many years after the publishing in 1995 of his autobiography, “Dreams from My Father.”

Bretbart News reported today that Dystel & Goderich requires authors represented by the agency to provide the biographical information upon which the agency’s publications are based.